r/TopCharacterTropes • u/Crashoutbop • Jul 04 '26

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Sailor moon -usagi tsukino door level even tho she’s a powerful character

Spider-Man 2 - Peter is fridge level even tho we seen him take down powerful villains

10.2k Upvotes

96% Upvoted

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2.2k

u/ButterscotchTiny5483 Jul 04 '26

If anything hits the Flash while he's in the Speed Force, he'll die.

1.4k

u/Hazy_Grey Jul 04 '26

Related: Wally west and his Kneecaps

612

u/stingflame Jul 04 '26

What's funnier is that Robin's spite got so far that he literally KILLED Kid Flash

135

u/Fausto2002 Jul 04 '26

Wym

408

u/CrayonWithdrawal Jul 04 '26

Teen Titans Go is like that. Sometimes folks just die but then they get better later

446

u/stingflame Jul 04 '26

No like, He never showed up again, Robin threw him into a pit of acid, We never saw Kid Flash again after

92

u/solar_boy-dijango Jul 04 '26

Adios nuclear reactor

40

u/SpikeRosered Jul 04 '26

One of my favorite gags is when StarFire has stretchy arms and tries to put Gizmo directly into prison, but stretches too far and accidently slingshots him into the sun.

Last we see of him is hurtling through space towards the sun.

He came fine later though.

6

u/Temporary-Life9986 Jul 04 '26

Not if you're Jason Todd. 

2

u/drive_a_vespa Jul 05 '26

that's some scott the woz logic

2

u/Common_Exam_1401 Jul 04 '26

Did him like Nancy Kerrigan

306

u/inazumaatan Jul 04 '26 edited Jul 04 '26

Flash has got to have the worst anti-feats in all of fiction.

121

u/MarcheMuldDerevi Jul 04 '26

I want to say that’s more related to fact you need to Nerf someone that fast for the story to function. With how quickly he processes information and moves. Nothing should be able to touch him. But because stories like that aren’t fun, they’ve gotta find ways to Nerf his ass constantly.

7

u/Hightower_March Jul 04 '26

Or just don't give alleged speedsters the ability to fall fast.

That isn't even a nerf.  It's just not providing an extra superpower.

2

u/IllEvent5465 Jul 04 '26

You can make the story about a villain that is even stronger
Or like make the story about a specific theme you want to tell, where him being OP contributes to the theme
Or give him a weakness that makes him not that strong for a while and give it to a bunch of enemies
Or make it about solving problems you cant just outrun or outpunch, you cant just outpunch racism for instance
Or make it about his day to day life
Or make it about him trying to keep his secret identity Or make it about a bunch of villains figuring out a convoluted strategy on how to beat him despite his immense speed

21

u/MarcheMuldDerevi Jul 04 '26

They often do? Like the reverse flashes are stronger. But constantly trying to be faster or fighting other speedsters does get old. I like the quirk that despite how fast the flash is Barry is almost always late to important things because he tries to be everywhere for everyone

2

u/IllEvent5465 Jul 04 '26

yeah i know, but i was talking not about doing one or the other but you can do multiple at once, you can mix it up
im just saying there's ways to make op characters work, the problem isnt that theyre op its that being op is hard to write well and when you have a character that has been op and has been written for so long by so many writers of different levels of skill it becomes harder to make them consistently fun

6

u/NerdHoovy Jul 04 '26

This isn’t really how things work.

Firstly, the most important part determining if a character is overpowered (or the term I prefer to use is over competent), would be if they are so good at whatever the source of conflict is, that it trivializes the main form of conflict.

This is good and all but due to how super powers are written, they more often than not end up being a complete mess, if any form of real life physics get involved, since most powers are made on the conceptual stage and not the physical one. Meaning they don’t have to abide any rules of physics to make sense. However this also means that you will very quickly into into scenarios, where by trying to ground them through definable feats, the character becomes so impossibly powerful in those categories, that they can not be properly challenged both in the field they are best at but also other aspects of life that could be an alternate source of conflict.

As an example, that’s why there can’t ever be an enemy that would properly challenge the strongest versions Superman or the Flash in any physical situation, because they are on a level that would make any opponent either comedically weak by comparison or so equally powerful to them, when would turn everything into an incomprehensible mess.

You can’t out speed, someone so fast that the rules of time no longer apply to them. You can’t hurt someone that has tanked collapsing galaxies. You can’t out strategize someone that can be everywhere all the time at once. This level of power is literally incomprehensible to the reader and writer.

The only solution is to write their limits to fit the stories they are currently in and try to make the best of it, even if admittedly it doesn’t make perfect sense. That’s why Flash can dodge lightning but also get hit by a piece of paper.

2

u/KoolKoolKoolio42 Jul 04 '26

The CW Flash had the first three seasons revolve around evil speedsters faster than Barry. It got old.

0

u/IllEvent5465 Jul 04 '26

Yea cus if you only do one of those things again and again it gets old fast thats why theres multiple exemples of things they can do

2

u/SenorRaoul Jul 04 '26

I don't know much about comics but I know that there are several characters that have been used for like 80 years by now.

Every suggestion that you could come up with they've done at least twice by now.

1

u/IllEvent5465 Jul 04 '26

Yeah i know i wasnt saying flash doesnt do that i was talking about how the issue isnt inherently about flash being OP preventing good stories but the fact that flash has been a thing for so long and so many stories with so many writers WHILE being OP that ie the problem

80

u/DirtyBalm Jul 04 '26

Flash Glazers: "The Flash beats the Hulk no diff"

But what if Hulk has a boomerang?

-11

u/ericap3tal4132 Jul 04 '26

flash should be untouchable but those anti-feats are wild

11

u/Exolerate Jul 04 '26

Shut up, bot.

7

u/[deleted] Jul 04 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

3

u/Exolerate Jul 04 '26

Fighting the good fight.

7

u/michael22117 Jul 04 '26

There's no way that's still how the speedforce works nowadays

3

u/Massive_Signal7835 Jul 04 '26

Speaking of speedsters being hit: In Darker than Black, Goran is killed because his opponent made it hail while he was using his power. He got shredded instantly because of his own speed.

9

u/ClassicT4 Jul 04 '26

How about Catwoman taking down three speedsters all using the Speed Force?

10

u/Germane_Corsair Jul 04 '26

They were being controlled by Poison Ivy who didn’t know how to handle their speed.

1

u/Youutternincompoop Jul 04 '26

IIRC there's a comic where Daredevil gets taken down by a paper plane.